Mages?

[an0mali]

I chose to avoid missile barrage because it de-synchs my rotation. I don't use cast sequences because cast sequences supposedly lower DPS a bit, and since I only dual-box the mages, I can afford to focus all of my attention on casting specific spells continuously, taking into account lag and other such delays that slow cast sequences down. If I used cast sequences on my mages (that'd be boring since its all I do with them ), I wouldn't be able to clip the last AM tick with an ABarr cast, which is supposed to get the ABx3 bonus as well. If I were 5-boxing with a tank and healer requiring most of my attention, I would probably use the cast sequences at a DPS loss so they require less attention and missile barrage would be useful since each mage will plod along its cast sequence regardless of the cast time of the other mages, but this isn't true in my case.

[Nisch]

I went full fire until like 55, then tried frost. It seemed much slower for me when I went to frost compared to fire.

[pinotnoir]

Frostbolt spam + elementals = easiest to manage and decent dps if you spec right. All the other specs require you to watch for procs to increase dps. Unless you want to mess with procs on 3 mages I suggest sticking to frost. If you want to see one of mine search for Icewine from magtheridon. The frost spec I have is pretty sweet. Make sure to glyph for elemental and molten armor. If you want you can glyph frostbolt but I still have not read solid info about it canceling torment the weak. If you remove the snare from frostbolt you wont get the 12% damage boost. If someone knows for a fact frostbolt glyph still allows torment the weak let me know.

[Zakalwe]

I'm starting to like the idea of levelling some mages as the playstyle seems quite fun.

Can anyone link some recommended builds then for frost or arcane? Atm I have my mage in the fire tree.

[Gadzooks]

I dont have much experience with living bomb to comment on, but since it doesnt explode until after 12 seconds, that would seem like a poor choice to AoE with since you could kill an AoE pack within that time just spamming AE. I tried fire for a little while with my dual mages while leveling and while it was really fun to watch a Northrend mob die instantly when both mage's pyro crit, but it just wasn't any faster overall than frost. Also, for scorch, nothing is going to live long enough to make much use of it. You could probably cast 3 scorches with your 3 fire mages and the mob would be dead by the end of the third round anyways (ofc that would be a very mana effeceint way to grind mobs ) If you are just questing with your group, you really wont gain anything from fire's bigger hits while you lose some survivability and ohsh!t buttons. Fire can be quite fun with big numbers and it wouldn't hurt to try it out, but I don't think you'd find you gained anything by going fire over frost.

I'm having a similar problem with my lone mage - I specced her FrostFire, and while she can pull huge numbers on bosses because of living bomb and such, she's actually hitting pretty low on the DPS meter right now - which is good and bad - good in that she's not her usual sneaky aggro grabber, bad in that group DPS is down. FrostFire is a great raid build, if you can sit there and manage it - which i can't, because my druid is my main. I'm also going to start switching up who's main - my Boomkin can be run on a macro, I don't do anything fancy with her.

I think you nailed it - the mobs die too fast for my mage to really start being effective (I'm grinding rep in Icecrown at the moment, I pretty much finished questing in Wrath...sniff)


I'm gonna try frost, after reading up on it, let you know how it goes.

[5fingersofdoom]

I've got 2 teams going at the moment,one is full Arcane the other is full Frost with a Frost DK thrown in a point/tank
For speed you can't beat Arcane (although i am running x5) and can Barrage most thing down to 15% finishing them with an Arcane explosion.
Frost is great where you need less mobility and CC is more important,say indoors instances ect.
So I would say if your Q levelling go Arcane,but if your looking to boost instances frost is better.
GL

[genocyde]

I will say with my 3x mage I have never seen a higher DPS output than Arcane Power + Icy Veins + Heroism and Spamming Arcane Blast until a missile barrage proc.
I only casted arcane missiles with a full 3x stack of the Arcane Blast buff and a missile barrage proc.

It was insane. Granted watching individual procs of missile barrage is something most probably won't do. But I used a
[nochanneling] macro to spam Arcane Blast with a modifier for each mage to cast Arcane Missiles on proc. Not that bad once I got used to it.
I can go through a 20k mana pool in under a minute but anything short of a raid boss will be dead by then anyway.

[Taliesin]

Personally, if I had 3 mages, then I'd spec one of each, as there are benefits for each one. Water for the mana regen to the party, arcane for the DPS and crit buff (Focus Magic), and fire also for good DPS. The variety of DPS also means that a particular mob immune to just fire, or frost, won't really slow you down or require a special rotation.

Currently, my only mage is arcane, and I don't really have any intention of changing that, except perhaps to re-spec to optimize the talents just a little more for the arcane build. Any arcane build should 3-stack the Arcane Blast, then ideally finish with Arcane Missiles (for maximum DPS, especially if glyphed) or even just an Arcane Barrage. The mage will eat through mana faster than any other class in the group, but also be riding the top of the DPS charts. Just hotkey Evocation to a button and use it every time its up, and you don't have to spend time drinking. I never even have to use her mana gems, but have that hotkeyed as well in case.

[BobGnarly]

I leveled them all fire, using a scorch build. With impact, you never get hit - you will usually get at least one stun per mob. Impact with a fast casting spell like scorch x4 is actually pretty busted.

[genocyde]

Personally, if I had 3 mages, then I'd spec one of each, as there are benefits for each one.

this was my initial thoughts as well. Unfortunately I could never get the total DPS of 1fire+1frost+1arcane anywhere near 3 of any identical spec. This was a long time ago when I was wearing full frost savage (what like 1300 SP?) on all 3 mages and may be worth revisiting now.

The variety of DPS also means that a particular mob immune to just fire, or frost, won't really slow you down or require a special rotation.

Out of curiosity does such a mob exist inside of an instance/raid? I lead on my druid and I can't think of a time I've seen immune on his screen.